View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianPortland Mayor Sam Adams' plan combines bioswales with bike boulevards, similar to this one in Portland's Sellwood neighborhood.

Mayor Sam Adams' plan to build a network of bike routes to link Portland neighborhoods should have been cheered as one of his most creative ideas in 20 years in city politics.

Instead, it's seen as one of his biggest blunders. Of all the city projects that use money from sewer and water rates, this is the one that rankles ratepayers most.

The idea -- to twin the environmental darlings of bioswales and bikes -- should have gone down like a latte in liberal Portland.

When Adams unveiled his 20-year bike plan last February, he envisioned making cycling easier and, in the process, boosting exercise rates, cutting carbon emissions and positioning Portland as not only America's most livable city, but its most sustainable one, too.

But a series of wrong turns led to a citizen revolt. Adams became mired in City Hall politics and bungled his sales pitch for the plan. When he suggested paying for part of it by skimming "contract savings" from sewer projects, the public saw the whole deal as just another grab for ratepayers' pocketbooks. "Sewer rates for bikes lanes" became a rallying cry.

"Savings are something that should be refunded for people who paid for the sewer, especially at a time when we have so many people struggling," said Catherine Watanabe, a 47-year-old library worker from Southeast Portland. "In times like this, we have to treat available money with a little bit more respect and not fund pet projects."

Despite the uproar, sewer rates were never going to rise to pay for bike boulevards, which are side streets modified to discourage car traffic. Transportation money will pay for bike boulevards. Sewer money will pay for the bioswales -- gardens that divert stormwater out of sewers and reduce overflows into the Willamette River and homeowners' basements.

The concept of "contract savings" also fizzled and was dropped.

Finally, the mayor's plan appears to be working -- at least so far. Plenty of potholes lie ahead; a big one is how to pick streets that would benefit from both bioswales and bike boulevards. But if Adams can steer around them, the plan may eventually be recognized as a real innovation.

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The political missteps started as soon as Adams brought his plan up for a City Council review Feb. 4.

The session was set up as more of a celebration than a debate. Leaders from Portland's bike, business and public health communities came to shower their support.

In the plan, four years in the making, Adams envisioned 700 miles of new lanes, trails and boulevards to entice Portlanders to make one-quarter of all their trips by bike. But the plan also had a sticking point, outlining projects that could run as much as $600 million without much reliable funding.

So Commissioner Dan Saltzman popped up at the meeting with a solution that redirected fees paid by city utilities from the general fund to bike projects, a concept similar to one Adams himself had pushed once.

But Saltzman also broke an unwritten City Hall rule: Stay out of each others' business -- especially in public. The mayor quickly dismissed Saltzman's idea twice during the meeting.

Then Adams hatched his own funding idea, to tap one of Saltzman's bureaus for $20 million. The mayor consulted other council members -- except Saltzman -- before the next hearing Feb. 11, securing enough support to get his plan passed.

"Time just ran out, and I didn't get to brief Saltzman," Adams said.

Adams pitched his idea to use "contract savings" on sewer projects for $20 million to help launch the bike plan, coining the term after seeing contractors' bids for sewer projects come in below estimates.

But for the people who manage construction projects at the Bureau of Environmental Services, the concept doesn't exist. Some projects come in below budget, some go over. Their job is balance out the two.

Adams said last week the list was meant only as an illustration. Even so, it made some city officials uneasy. One of Saltzman's staff members, Matt Grumm, bluntly told a reporter last spring that there were "no contract savings" in Adams' proposal, prompting a confrontation between the mayor and Saltzman's staff. City employees mockingly called Adams' idea "birds on bikes."

Perhaps worse, Adams got so focused on his spat with Saltzman that he lost sight of his most important job -- to build public support.

Some people had never even heard the term "bioswale." How were they supposed to understand how bioswales benefited bicyclists? And how could Adams possibly redirect $20 million in spending without compromising the sewer system?

Beyond the City Hall infighting, Adams had other political forces working against him. Both Adams and bikes had become lightning rods. At the time, Adams still faced the threat of a recall, and bikes are a wedge issue, often pitting liberals against conservatives. And public skepticism of bike spending had already been piqued by Adams' attempt to convert the old Sauvie Island bridge into a Pearl District bike overpass.

Supporters, including Leonard, say that's a shame because behind all the static, Adams had not only a good plan but reasonable answers for critics:

Bioswales not only help the environment, they can also make streets safer. They are built into the curbs and produce wider sidewalks and narrower streets. That encourages drivers to slow down and shortens street crossings for bikers and walkers.

"It seemed like a really smart twofer," Adams said. But, the mayor added, "I was busy trying to explain why there were savings, and I should have spent more time explaining the double benefit. I overestimated people's understanding. That's clearly my mistake."

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Considering the political mess, the bike plan is moving along fairly well.

First, the city took steps that muted the controversy. The program was absorbed into a larger "neighborhood greenways" concept that avoids the words "bike" and "sewer."

As for the "contract savings," Adams still believes they exist, though Bureau of Environmental Services officials disagree. But the matter was settled when the bureau agreed to absorb the bioswale work into its budget by shifting some priorities.

On the ground, Adams' Bureau of Transportation plans to start building five bike boulevards this year, with one of the first along Northeast Holman Street.

Saltzman's Bureau of Environmental Services is paying about three-quarters of the estimated $950,000 cost. Most of its share will pay for bioswales at busy crossings at 15th, 33rd and 42nd avenues.

"This is the kind of thing that people will look to us as leaders in," said Catherine Ciarlo, the mayor's transportation director.

The program's primary challenge is finding streets that can benefit from both bioswales and bike boulevards. In broad terms, transportation planners most want bike lanes east of 82nd Avenue, but sewer planners want bioswales west of 82nd Avenue. The two sides are seeing compromises, but some tension remains among Adams, Saltzman and their bureaus.

The early projects, including one just east of 82nd Avenue, will lean toward helping bikes more than sewers.

But Saltzman, who clearly has reason to be skeptical, has monitored the projects, and even he seems pleased. He has promised that utility rates will not be spent to help bike riders without primarily benefiting the sewer system. The concept city officials are working on calls for spending $15 million on streets that mainly benefit the sewer or stormwater system and $5 million on streets that mostly benefit bicyclists.

The Bureau of Environmental Services does have to delay three projects as they take on the bike-bioswale work: cleanup work on the Columbia Slough, an upgrade to a downtown pump station and repairs on a Southwest Portland pipe, said Susan Aldrich, the bureau's capital improvement program manager.

But Saltzman has set a clear standard for the program.

"Let me be crystal clear," Saltzman wrote in a letter to Portlanders, "sewer rate dollars will only be used for improvements to the sewer and stormwater system. Bicycle safety is a secondary benefit, but will not add cost to sewer ratepayers."